1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to communication systems. More specifically, the present invention relates to data routing systems.
While the present invention is described herein with reference to illustrative embodiments for particular applications, it should be understood that the invention is not limited thereto. Those having ordinary skill in the art and access to the teachings provided herein will recognize additional modifications, applications and embodiments within the scope thereof and additional fields in which the present invention would be of significant utility.
2. Description of the Related Art
Data routing systems route data from an input channel to an appropriate output channel. Often, data is input and output in bursts, with a number of bursts making up a frame. Certain satellite data routing systems, for example, particularly those built for secure communications, require the ability to time deshuffle the order of incoming data bursts and to time shuffle the order of outgoing data bursts. In addition, output buffers must format the output data to obtain the proper burst rate and burst size.
The conventional approach for data routing systems is to provide one dedicated input frame buffer for each input channel and two dedicated output frame buffers for each output channel, with one output frame buffer for data shuffling and one output frame buffer for data formatting. Thus, in conventional designs, one additional frame buffer is required for each added input channel and two additional frame buffers are required for each added output channel. This becomes prohibitively expensive when frame sizes or the number of input/output channels is large because such additional memory adds significantly to the weight, size and power requirements of a satellite. These mission critical parameters must be limited to minimize the high cost of satellite manufacture and launch.
Thus, there is a need in the art for a data routing system requiring less memory for input data deshuffling and output data formatting and shuffling than current data routing systems. Further, satellite customers often change the number of required input and output channels during the proposal or design periods. Hence, there is an additional need in the art for a data routing system requiring less additional memory for each additional input and output channel than current data routing systems.